I have spent the last few hours in my library, sitting in front of the shelf which holds my Carlos Fuentes collection (those books I have read and those I will read – I think it's safe to say very few have kept up with his prodigious output over recent years), and it has surprised me to realise how much time I have spent in the company of his work. I met Fuentes five years ago, but my relationship with his books, at least according to the personal survey I have just conducted, began in 1992, when I read The Death of Artemio Cruz and Aura and also Geography of the Novel. I always make a note of the date when I finish reading a book, so those pages bear witness to these 20 years. To put it another way: when I met him, in the summer of 2007, I had already been reading him as a classic for 15 years; and that literary admiration metamorphosed into the thrill of his friendship, of his company and conversation, of his all-too-rare curiosity. That passage from literary to personal knowledge of a novelist often leads to regret and disappointment; in this case, it was nothing short of privilege.

I saw him last October, I saw him in January, but I won't see him in November. This seems impossible to reconcile with the last image I hold of him, with the recurrent surprise of his longevity. Not his physical youthfulness, which was in itself miraculous, but the vitality of his mind: his unbelievable memory, allowing him to quote the entire cast of any film from the 60s; his quick wit and good humour, capable of defusing any solemnity. Fuentes's intellectual leadership is inexhaustible. Several generations learned from him and a few others what Latin American literature is. I learned, for instance, that this literature is the exact opposite of local literature, and that the Latin American novelist will embrace the world, accept or seek every influence of every tradition, devour every theme and every territory. I also learned to read: Cervantes and the chroniclers of the Indies and Broch and Musil. Fuentes's work passed on an idea of ambition – what it is, what it is for; it also pointed out that fidelity to a vocation does not mean hiding away from the world, but rather engaging with it and seeking its reinvention by the power of the written word. I learned, finally, about generosity of spirit, although I will never be able to practise it as he did.

A few months ago, through someone else's initiative and for reasons not pertinent here, I wrote to him asking who were his deceased. The question meant to touch upon Francisco de Quevedo's famous poem:

"Retreated in the peace of these deserts
With few but learned books together
I live with the deceased in conversation
And with my eyes I listen to the dead."

His answer reached me a couple of days later. His handwriting, which I knew before meeting him (having seen it in facsimiles, in autographs), had become almost indecipherable, but its message was as luminous as can be: "My deceased, you may imagine, are all those ancestors I remember (very few) and all those I am unable to (the great majority). I am what I am – and you are what you are – because of them." And tonight I cannot help but think that Fuentes has become one of those deceased; and after the mourning and the sadness, here, in my library where so many learned books stand together, I'm thinking at least I will live with him in conversation. I will listen to him with my eyes.